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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29946888">Walls covered in Chalk.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenClavel/pseuds/QueenClavel'>QueenClavel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:15:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,141</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29946888</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenClavel/pseuds/QueenClavel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Theseus was expecting a monster, corpses and bodies scattered across the winding corridor.</p>
<p>He wasn't expecting walls depicting art and beauty and emotion beyond what he could imagine.</p>
<p>-=-</p>
<p>I don't know what to tell you man, it is what it is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Walls covered in Chalk.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He had never seen the sun. He had been told about it, but he didn’t quite know what it was. He was told it was the domain of Apollo, who for twelve hours would ride across the sky in his golden chariot. He didn’t know what a chariot was either, but he had been told what it was. It was a vessel to carry one across lands quickly, pulled by horses. Horses had been made by Poseidon, like a wave, whereas chariots and bridles had been made by Athena, the goddess of knowledge, as a way of demonstrating her skill.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He could imagine what a wave felt like. It was in his blood, almost. He could imagine what horses were like. He could imagine what the sun was like, and what the bridles and chariots felt like. He could imagine the sun and the moon, despite never having seen them, and he could imagine Poseidon and Athena, creating the Horse and Chariot, even after they had fought bitterly over the City of Athens. He thought it would be nice to go visit Athens. He had heard it was a nice city, of intelligent and kind folk.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Perhaps he would be allowed to visit it one day. Perhaps he would be let out of the maze he was trapped in for reasons he did not understand, perhaps he could live among the Athenians as an artist, creating beautiful drawings and sculptures of men and women and Heroes. The young boy thought he might be a hero. It made sense, his origins were rather strange. But his father had told him he was nought but a monster.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>Theseus was someone who had seen the sun. He had seen chariots and horses and waves and the golden chariot of Apollo soaring over the sky. He had never seen Apollo himself, but he knew they were cousins, like how Poseidon was his father and Athena also his cousin. He had seen bridles and saddles. He had seen Athens. He had not grown up there, but he was destined to rule the city, and he had done a great deal to prove that it was his right, from capturing a bull to evading being poisoned.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he could still feel a wave. He could feel what the sun was meant to be, not just the chariot of Apollo, but the strength, the power, the beauty it was. He could see the divinity of it almost, of what he only had a fraction of as a child of Poseidon. He could feel the essence of horses and chariots, bridles and saddles and creations of man and god alike. He could feel it in his blood, for he possessed it in his own. And it was exhilarating. It filled him with pride to have even a fraction of that.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he was glad he had that divine blood within him, a lack of fear and strength beyond that most could imagine, for after years of King Minos taking his citizens for slaughter, he had decided to put an end to it by killing the beast that had put so many of his own people to death. He had heard only of rumours, for that was all that escaped the island of Crete. Stories of a creature with bull horns, humanoid in nature and yet more animalistic than imaginable. A beast of divine origin, blood of a bull, a woman and a god…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Theseus was used to monsters. He had seen them before, and had fought and won against them. He was expecting a fight with a beast with an axe, a great battle of strength between two divine mortals, with strength involved. What he wasn’t expecting to find in those halls of the Bull of Crete, was littered across the walls, child-like drawings in chalk. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They started off simple. The chalk drawings started off simple, child-like, as if a young boy drew them. Simple shapes and squiggles, things that could be flowers or suns to someone who had never seen them before. Theseus knew that these drawings couldn’t have been from the people entrapped, as the beast would have killed them, and the beast itself certainly couldn’t have drawn them. It was a foul monster born of origins too despicable to name…</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But they grew more complex as the young prince travelled through the halls and corridors. Simple squiggles turned into abstract drawings and interpretations of things he could understand. Suns turned into envisions of Apollo atop his chariot, the squiggles became recognisable as ocean waves with Poseidon riding across them, or what Poseidon should have been. Not the god, or the mortal forms of the god, but the essence of him, waves and earthquakes and all those things somehow fit into a single drawing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The abstraction changed to realism, with human bodies drawn in ways that could only be observed by someone who had seen them, all still in the same white chalk colour. The bodies were not ones that looked off pain when it came to the faces. Much like the essences of the gods that the artist had managed to capture, the artist had somehow looked into the souls of whoever it was he had drawn. Their faces were idealised versions of their faces, their true form, their hate and guilt, their love and pride and every other thing that lingered within them, put on display for whoever traversed the labyrinth to see.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And after making his way through the corridors of art, he would find himself looking upon the beast who had drawn it. An axe lay by the beasts side, but it was not ready to be used, not by any means. Hair covered most of its body, and from what the prince could see, it seemed soft, warm almost, like a crisp autumn eve, and its lower body was like the colour of olive oil, and not only that, but human, as opposed to the pure beast Theseus thought he was. His hands held a piece of chalk, where the beast drew a flower. More complex than his early works, from what Theseus could make out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The beast's ears would flick up upon Theseus enter, the bull turning to face him. His eyes met with Theseus’ own, and there was a moment of silence between the two. Neither lunged at one another, for they were transfixed. They had the same eyes. They were obviously distinct to the species, but both held a hue to it. The hue of the ocean, the waves, the essence of Poseidon, hurtful and comforting at the same time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Asterius was the first to speak. He spoke strangely. It had a minoan voice to it, despite it being Greek, but his voice was soft for what he was. “Tell me about your home. I’d love to draw it.”</span>
</p>
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